If you’re a Career Girl who dreams of working in the media one day, there are a few different ways you can prepare to enter the field and educate yourself about what to expect in the industry. While you’ve probably thought of some of the most common ways to do this like working internships during the summer or school year and requesting informationals with media professionals, another way to get a sense of a career in media is by reading books written by some of the top women in the field.

By reading books authored by notable professionals, you can get a sense of the work women in specific roles do and what challenges they faced working in the industry. It should come as no surprise that media is a difficult field for women to move up in due to the lack of diversity but many have succeeded and their experiences can help you learn to succeed too.

Here are four book to add to your reading list:

“Audition” by Barbara Walters: Walters forged a path for women in the broadcast media industry. Many opportunities would not be available today if it wasn’t for her. In this book you can learn about the struggles she faced moving up and what it’s like working in the TV industry.

“Front Row At The White House: My Life and Times” by Helen Thomas: Thomas was the first female member of the White House press corps and paved the way for women covering presidential politics. If you’re interested in working at a wire or covering D.C. politics, this book is an essential read.

“Reporting Live” by Lesley Stahl: Stahl rose through the broadcast journalism ranks when women were even rarer in the field than they are today. Her experiences will teach you a lot about the lifestyle of TV news.

“Personal History” By Katharine Graham: If newspapers are more your style, then you need to read this book by one of the top women in the industry who was the publisher of The Washington Post, continuing her family’s long legacy in the position which only recently came to an end.

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The Power of Inertiahttp://careergirlnetwork.com/power-inertia/
http://careergirlnetwork.com/power-inertia/#commentsMon, 13 Oct 2014 11:00:00 +0000http://careergirlnetwork.com/?p=28931Inertia, simply put, is the tendency for physical objects in motion to remain in motion. It may be a principal we all learned in high school physics, but it applies to our personal and professional lives every day. Staying active, creating good habits and keeping busy both professionally and socially can help us succeed with less perceived effort.

So often I look at successful people and say, “how do they do it all?” They have the same amount of hours in the day as anyone else, yet they’ve managed to launch a successful business, write a book, get an advanced degree and/or raise a family. They undoubtedly build upon successes along the way, learn from inevitable mistakes and refrain from spending too much time on the “coulda, shoulda, woulda’s”. They just keep going. Even after they’ve made mistakes or taken wrong turns, they dust themselves off and get back out there.

Whether it’s writing, running, doing yoga, networking, job searching or making new friends, practice makes perfect. I liken it to finding a groove. We all have those moments during the day when we’re so focused on the task at hand that we could work forever and lose track of time. Having focus, putting one foot in front of the other, and building upon already existing inertia makes accomplishing large tasks so much easier. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not a proponent of working yourself into exhaustion and burnout. But determination, consistency, courage, and commitment will get you farther than you ever imagined possible.

They say that if you want something to get done, you have to give it to the busiest person. And that’s so true! If you just keep making small decisions and moving forward (or even backward at some times), you’re bound to complete your task faster than you would if you had backed down, waited for the right moment to start, or taken a detour because everything wasn’t exactly perfect.

A couple of weeks ago, I shaved thirty minutes off my previous record on a 20 mile training run. It was a gorgeously brisk day along the lakefront and I was feeling energized, but it was my mantra that really helped get me through when all I wanted to do was quit. “Just keep going” was on repeat in my head for hours, because I know from past experiences that the moment I slowdown is the moment I stop racing. Any athlete will tell you that it’s infinitely harder to start up again, once you’ve decided to take your foot off the gas. Both physically and mentally.

And that’s really true with so many things in life. Whether you’re succeeding, failing, or somewhere in between, keeping the momentum going and moving forward will get you to wherever you need to go, faster. Dreaming, plotting and planning will only get you so far. Doing, moving and conquering will help make your wildest dreams come true. So when the large tasks seem overwhelming and that faraway goal seems too unattainable, just keep going. You’re bound to accomplish so much more than had you just let time pass on by.
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Do you work in an environment where you feel that the tension can literally be cut with a knife? Spending eight to nine hours per day in an environment that you perceive as negative and stressful can take a toll on a Career Girl’s health, but only if you allow it.

Here are some tips to rise above the negativity at work!

Focus on Solutions – Do you notice that co-workers who appear to have minimum stress are also solution focused? Instead of focusing on what you don’t like about your job or work environment, choose to focus on strategies that will allow you to gain more job satisfaction. Focusing on solutions opens the door for opportunities!

Avoid Taking Criticism Personally – Yes, your boss, clients, and even your co-workers may give you feedback that you perceive as critical. Instead of perceiving the feedback as a blow to your self-worth or character, try to view it solely as business-related. When you avoid taking criticism personally, you are more likely to be able to move forward and remain productive.

Trust that your Optimistic Attitude Will Pay Off – You might be the only one in your office who possesses an optimistic attitude and that’s okay! Even if you don’t think that people notice your optimistic attitude, they do and your positivity will become contagious!

Rise Above Sinking to their Level – It’s easy to get caught up in office gossip, politics, and negativity. It’s important to have a plan of what you’ll do to avoid it. It might be as simple as stepping away when your co-workers begin to gossip.

Now it’s time to take action! What tip resonates with you the most to rise above negativity at work?

Office space arrangements come in many sizes and shapes these days. Where once there were only grey cubicles and corner offices, there are now shared spaces, open floor plans with breakout areas, cubicles with low walls, and a host of other creative ways of squeezing more productivity out of fewer square feet. Technology will continue to dictate how and where we work, and our interaction with it isn’t always as straightforward as it would initially appear.

No matter the industry you’re in, it’s important to not make the decision to wear earbuds lightly. Similar to how we dress or our posture, whether or not we choose to tune out the din of our coworkers is a reflection on us personally and how we do it our job; it becomes part of our brand.

Here are a few things to think about when deciding whether or not it’s acceptable to shut out your coworkers for any length of time.

Are you the only one wearing headphones? Is this an accepted practice in your workplace? In large, loud, open workspaces, drowning out the conversations around you is often required just to get any work done. It’s a completely common and accepted practice; it is simply part of the company culture. In a smaller, somewhat more divided or quiet setting, it isn’t so necessary. You never want to appear anti-social and uncooperative. Making connections in the workplace is incredibly important to not only getting the job done, but also learning and growing professionally. Being known as the person with the earbuds in isn’t great for your career trajectory.

What or whom are you tuning out? If you appear to be unavailable to your boss or coworkers who want to collaborate, consider holding off. The last thing we want to do is look like we’re uninterested in learning from and interacting with other people. You want to be known as someone with expertise, not someone who is unwilling to share their ideas with others. Annoyingly loud phone calls, unnecessary conversation and even some keyboards can cause significant distraction. But appearing unavailable to help or communication in any way is generally something we should avoid at all costs.

Is this a regular occurrence? Having conversations in real time (versus email and instant messaging) is a huge part of why we show up to the office every day. Going to the office only to tune out everyone around you is counterintuitive. If a large part of your job requires monotonous task or precise concentration, earbuds and stimulating music or a podcast might help you be more productive. If you start to wear earbuds and headphones on the regular, you might want to rethink your motivation and whether it is merely a habit or something that you can live without for the sake of career advancement and connectivity.

At the end of the day, the choice to wear or not to wear earbuds or headphones is a personal one. Like anything else we do throughout our careers, it needs to be a conscious decision made with eyes wide open to the potential benefits and consequences.
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Preparing and taking advantage of internships are topics often talked about, but when they are discussed it’s usually in regards to internships that take place during the summer. While summer internships are probably the most common type, it’s important to remember that internships during the school year can be just as valuable to your career. That being said it is true that interning during a semester will be harder than during the summer since you have less free time as you juggle classes and activities.

Career Girls need to carefully consider the pros and cons of taking on a school year internship before moving forward, but if you decide to take the leap there are a few steps you can take to make life a bit easier as you balance work, life, and school.

Here are five tips for handling an internship during school.

Accept help. In order to juggle everything you have to, don’t turn away the aid of your advisers, professors, and friends. Your advisers and professors have probably seen students intern during the year before and might have advice for how to balance classwork and activities with your intern schedule. Your friends can also help you relax and keep you on track when you start to feel overwhelmed with everything you’re doing. Don’t feel ashamed to need help! You’re doing a lot and it’s the smart, strong thing to do to know when you need a little extra aid.

Take the time to manage yourschedule. Don’t just say yes automatically when your internship asks if you can be available on certain days. Make sure you look at your schedule and arrange it so you have time for everything you need to do. If the internship definitely needs you certain days, then your classes need to make room for that. If you need to take a class for your major and it’s only at a certain time, make your internship work around that. Most internships understand that you’re taking important classes at the same time and will try to accommodate your schedule, so don’t be afraid to take a moment and review everything so it makes sense.

Try to intern during at least one weekend day. One way to make room for classes is to make one of your internship days take place on the weekend. Try to work a few hours on Saturday or Sunday, but not both. Leave yourself at least one weekend day to relax and catch up on schoolwork.

Make sure you get enough sleep. Since you’ll be balancing a lot, you want to make sure your body is getting enough rest so you can process it all and avoid too much stress. Even if it means not staying up as late as normal or missing out on some parties, it’s very important to make sure you get enough sleep!

Get Organized. Perhaps the most important thing you can do is make sure you’re organized. This will help you balance everything you’re doing during the semester from classes to internships to activities. Being organized and knowing when everything is happening and where you have to be will lead to a less stressful time altogether for you.

2. Way to audition for Emmy hosting gig…Between all of the humor (Byran Cranston kissing Julia Louis-Dreyfus after she won her Emmy; Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson’s antics, etc.,) at this year’s Emmy Awards, these actors and actresses should consider (if they haven’t already), taking next year’s gig of hosting the Emmys. The audience doesn’t want drama; they want laughter.

3. Shonda Rhimes television takeover is evident. While Ms. Rhimes is preparing for the upcoming season premieres of Grey’s Anatomy , Scandal, and her most recent one, How to Get Away with Murder, the star of Scandal, Kerry Washington, was on hand at the Emmys because of her nomination as Outstanding Lead Actress in a drama series.

4. Gratitude always wins. Juliana Margulies beat out her fellow nominees to win for her performance in The Good Wife. In every speech she gives, she never leaves out her husband and children.

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Learn Names Quicklyhttp://careergirlnetwork.com/learn-names-quickly/
Tue, 02 Sep 2014 19:00:00 +0000http://careergirlnetwork.com/?p=28771Learning people’s names is a skill and one that I have been fortunate enough to have picked up early in my lifetime. I definitely contribute my ability to quickly remember people’s names to being a member of a Greek organization and meeting a large number of girls during Rush Weeks. Sidebar:I wrote about the benefits of being in a Greek organization here: Greek Life Skills in the Workplace.

One of my campuses recently started up so I am in the process of learning ALL my students’ names. Yes, you read that right, ALL of them. By the end of the term, and realistically the end of next week, I will know each of their names and faces.

My students love when I know their name. In fact, more people love when you remember their name. Think about it, how good does it feel to be remembered by someone who you recently just met? Pretty amazing.

In the business world and in life being able to learn people’s names is a great skill to have it just takes practice.

Learn someone’s name by using:

1.) The Rule of Three: Use the person’s name three times in the course of your initial interaction with them is my “Go to.” At first this may seem odd, saying a person’s name three times during the course of the conversation with them, how is that possible? There are three really easy ways to do this without being awkward: At the beginning, in the middle and at the end of the conversation.

“Hi Nancy, nice to meet you”

“Nancy, that sounds really interesting.”

“It was really nice meeting you, Nancy.”

2.) Monikers: Assign a moniker to the person’s name. Think of the “Name Game” where you rhyme or add an adjective to the person’s name. You don’t want to say this moniker out load because that might be awkward, especially if the person didn’t come up with the moniker.

“Fancy Nancy”

“Nice Nancy”

“No-nonsense Nancy”

3.) Association: Associate the person’s name with a physical feature, occupation, or activity. This is especially helpful if you will be seeing this person regularly and you use something that is easily recognizable and sets them apart from others. Tip: If you want to remember you and your name try and have a staple item, accessory, style for them to commit to memory.

“Nancy with green eyes”

“Nancy from Accounting”

“Nancy wears a gold watch”

4.) Introductions: Introduce the person to another new person following your initial interaction. If you can introduce them to someone else and use one of the associations you made about them you will be able to further commit their name to memory. It might go something like this:

“Have you met, Nancy from Accounting?”

“Let me introduce you to Nancy, she works in Accounting.”

“Dave, do you happen to know Nancy from Accounting?”

5.) A Marker: Bookmark where the person sits or is consistently located. This is really useful in my class and in an office setting where people have assigned desks. At the start of every term I figure out who sits where and then associate that seat with their name. In an office it might work like this:

“Nancy sits by the window”

“Nancy with the desk by the A/C unit”

“Nancy who is by the copy machine”

There are many different ways to learn people’s names. Share with me:What’s your “Go-To” for remembering someone’s name?
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Burning The Midnight Oilhttp://careergirlnetwork.com/burning-midnight-oil/
Thu, 21 Aug 2014 17:00:00 +0000http://careergirlnetwork.com/?p=27477It’s 8pm and for the fourth day in a row, you’re the last person in the office. The janitorial staff politely clean around you while you’re still struggling to get the last of the slides together before tomorrow’s presentation. Your desk is littered with Post-It notes, empty coffee mugs and scribbled to-do lists. You haven’t seen the gym, a home-cooked meal or any sort of routine in weeks and you’re ready to throw in the towel because there is no discernable light at the end of the tunnel. But before you quit, pull out your hair, or make some other rash decision because you’re undoubtedly running on too little sleep and too much caffeine, ask yourself a few simple questions about what led you here in the first place.

Is this what you signed up for? Were you promised a nine-to-five schedule when you interviewed or did you go into the job with eyes wide open? There are some industries where long days are standard operating procedure. Take consultants and lawyers for example. Everyone regularly “works hard to play hard”, meaning twelve hour days during the workweek are normal and on Fridays everyone cuts out early for happy hour. If you have to spend more time in remote offices than your own cubicle, in theory you’re compensated for this kind of irregular schedule. Hopefully, you knew that you’d be working long days before you signed on the dotted line. It becomes a problem when the amount of hours worked, especially for exempt employees, more than outweighs how your company values you.

Is this temporary? Are you working on a unique project with a tight deadline? There will always be times when we need to put in the extra time to meet extraordinary business needs. Certain projects, and even certain times year, require extra effort. Whether it’s working from home in order to accommodate our personal lives or putting off certain activities in order to meet a goal, hard work and dedication is usually recognized and are always admirable traits. Knowing that there is an ending point to all of the craziness is usually a huge relief and sometimes just enough to push us through the finish line.

Could you be working smarter (instead of longer or harder)? Did you spend the majority of your day gabbing away around the water cooler only to find yourself sorely behind when the afternoon rolled around? Most of us have a tendency to procrastinate in one form or another, but it’s especially detrimental if it occurs on a regular basis or during critical business and productivity times. Working smarter is a completely underrated attribute and is never more valuable than when deadlines are tight. Create small deadlines, create lists, or manage your time in other ways in order to use your time effectively. Distractions will always exist, but efficiency is incredibly important when the stakes are high.

Can you delegate or ask for additional resources? Does your immediate boss know that you’re putting in ridiculous hours? Do you have the authority to hire a consultant to come in and lighten the burden? Is there someone in the department with extra resources to whom some of your work can be delegated? Are you too controlling about your work product when there are already plenty of staff willing and able to help complete your project? One of the keys to success, as a manager at any level, is the ability to delegate and collaborate. Using resources wisely (read: time, others’ knowledge) is a trait that will make everyone more successful. Getting other people on board with a project and bringing in outside help when necessary will mean fewer late nights and undoubtedly a better outcome.

Good, bad or otherwise, nothing lasts forever. If you can’t take care of yourself and your sanity while taking care of business, then it’s time to change things up.

But, if you can take a step back and get clarity on the context of your situation, the extra effort will pay dividends.
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4 Ways to Show Gratitude In the Workplacehttp://careergirlnetwork.com/4-ways-show-gratitude-workplace/
Wed, 20 Aug 2014 13:32:00 +0000http://careergirlnetwork.com/?p=28678As millennials, we are often labeled as entitled, narcissistic young people who want everything handed to them on a silver platter. Though we’re pounding the pavement armed with our college degrees, critiqued resumes and a knowledge of the latest forms of technology, the fact that we were born a generation later than the baby boomers automatically puts potential employers on alert. However, I have found that displaying a certain quality can counteract and erase that stereotypical persona of millennials: Gratitude.

Here are four ways to show gratitude at work:

Send a thank you note: Ahh.. the classic. Every time I visit TJ Maxx, I pick up a few packages of decorated thank you cards so that I keep a nice selection around when I need them. Whether a connection took the time to give you a good reference, write a recommendation letter, or connect you with one of their contacts, you should always take the time to write out a thank you note thanking them for the gesture, and always, always, always, send a thank you note after an interview. It really does make all the difference.

Show Up to Office Functions: My office is involved in various organizations in the community and we try to support each other efforts as much as possible. I’ve attended charity events, awards ceremonies, and even office dinner parties among other outings. While you may not be able to participate in everything that happens in your workplace, being involved in as many events as possible shows that you care about your place of employment, its reputation and appreciate your position there.

Don’t neglect your boss or your employees: There is a Boss’s Day and an Administrative Professionals Day for a reason. Though you don’t have to recognize that day, doing something nice for your boss or the employees who work for you every once in a while is remembered. Whether it’s taking them to lunch or buying them a shiny new set of pins, remembering the person who signs your check or types your letters is a nice gesture that won’t go unnoticed.

Help someone else: Trust me, the next set or two of graduates after you will need helping hand in the land of networking, or perhaps someone you went to college with needs a recommendation. Or you may be a pertinent connection for a former workmate. Chances are, you probably found the job you have now through a friend of a friend. Just don’t forget about everyone else. You were once (or maybe you still are) in their shoes. Lend a helping hand when you in the capacity to do so.

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3 Tips to Be Bravehttp://careergirlnetwork.com/3-tips-to-be-brave/
Mon, 18 Aug 2014 23:00:00 +0000http://careergirlnetwork.com/?p=27491Merida from Disney’s Brave seemed to herald a “new” type of Disney princess – her story wasn’t about finding her true love, but about her managing societal and familial expectations while staying true to her authentic nature. There is no romantic subplot (it’s a mother-daughter one, really).

Career Girls are bombarded with “let’s be woman, hear me roar” slogans yet get confusing messages that are part of a meta-narrative that yes, women should seem independent and fierce – because that will help attract a modern partner with traditional sensibilities (look to a modern day monarchy…). In the office, gender politics are still at play. Be independent, smart, bright – but don’t rock the boat too much.

Rather than showing “independence” to capture a prince(cess)’s heart or a boss’s approval, be brave. Be the boss – be yourself – just be.

1. Be irreverent
We can’t simply break every rule just to break them. Even Merida, who wasn’t shy about breaking the rules, came to terms with how to adhere to societal parameters while not following victim to being a cog in the wheel. Bend the rules every now and then. Question them, challenge them. Don’t just accept what you’re told to do.

2. Speak Up
Sara Bareillis’ song, Brave, says “…your history of silence won’t do you any good…let your words be anything but empty. Why don’t you tell them the truth?” Brilliantly said, there is no place to hold your tongue just to get someone’s approval. Speaking up is not a permission slip to let loose and be rude or disrepectful. It is about being mindful of the power of words and not hold yourself back. No one else will speak for you, so you have to.

3. Find a Greater Purpose
Recognizing a larger, more meaningful purpose that just yourself helps to put everything into perspective. Is your work really about you, your advancement, or your paycheck? Of course that is part of it. But what’s behind that? Why are you doing what you’re doing? Is there a purpose or a set of values that go beyond the task at hand? Acknowledging this can help to be more fearless in addressing what needs to be addressed, trying new things , and failing – knowing that you’ll bounce back.